


Review on Ghostbusters (2016)

by BoochanChurri



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21746590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoochanChurri/pseuds/BoochanChurri
Kudos: 2





	Review on Ghostbusters (2016)

Ghostbusters

Answer The Call

A Ruined Beginning To Female Leadership In Cinema

When I was little, I caught a few scenes from the original _Ghostbusters (1984),_ and I remember feeling really excited and a little scared watching the _Ghostbusters_ defeat the **Marshmallow Man** , who stayed in my memory and in my dreams for the longest time. Recently, I watched the original _Ghostbusters I_ and _II_ , and I felt like a child again, I had so much fun and I found the emotional connection with this masterpiece. But not a while after I made the mistake of watching the so-called female remake of this movie, **Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)** , and I am sad to say that I wasn’t able to be a child again nor have a connection with this movie as I did with the original.

After watching the trailer and hearing a lot of bad things about this movie, I decided to watch it wholeheartedly with hope that they might be wrong. And unfortunately, they weren’t.

As a woman (at least in body) I love female representation in movies, in video games, anything, and I love it for them to be powerful, so you can tell how excited I wanted to be. This movie really tried hard and maybe too much in giving me that and that is why it failed.

I got my hopes up in the beginning seeing the acting of the quirky tour guide and his trick. But then I saw the ghost woman and I couldn’t tell if I was watching _Ghostbusters_ or _Scooby Doo_. I decided to keep watching on, maybe it was just aimed for kids. And then I saw a very attractive gay woman ( _Jillian Holtzman_ , _female Egon_ ), from the moment I saw her I knew she was gay, and I was hoping for romance, just like in the originals. But I didn’t get none of it. None of the _John Cusack-like (Serendipity)_ charisma of _Peter Venkman(_ **Bill Murray** _),_ and no LGBT romance despite the LGBT character. But I decided to watch on hoping for something that will give me a connection to this try-hard movie.

I got madder and madder as I saw another one of my favorite actors. _Kevin Beckman_ played by **Chris Hemsworth** _( The Avengers)_, and I thought, oh, this must be _Louis Tully (_ **Rick Moranis** _)_. Only it wasn’t. Let’s get real. Kevin was sexualized, he was only there because of his body and his accent. He was made to be there for women, he was eye candy essentially, which was one of the biggest mistakes of this movie. He was made to be idiotic in every single scene, not just once but a few times per scene. Too much is never good. You’ll know this if you have watched _Tropic Thunder (2008 ). _

This is not what feminism is about. I feel like that’s what the creator was going for, but this is not equality at all. He was made to take his shirt off, just to see his abs, they made him look like an idiot by showing pictures of his, with a saxophone. Everyone was attracted to him based solely on looks, they made comments behind his back, they made him feel like an object, a pretty thing to look at. They made his character a strong oversexualized male with no intelligence and made him inferior to women. The fact that he was oversexualized made me realize that I couldn’t stand it at that point of the movie. I was appalled at whoever wrote his character and whoever thought it was good to reverse things and oversexualize a man. Don’t make the same mistakes from the past on whichever gender in whichever film in whatever circumstance.

The original _Ghostbusters_ caught a good number of ghosts throughout the movie but the female counterparts didn’t manage to catch anything essentially. Even if they did catch one, they let it go for albeit baseless reasons. Like, how can I call and rely on the Ghostbusters if they suck at their job? How can I feel safe in a town full of ghosts, and no professionals like Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston to help me?

This is nitpicking but the book that Rowan owned should not have had blank pages with his drawings but actual pages of words with his drawings. Because that’s not how a book is. In the film, the ghostbusters seemed to be more interested in proving the existence of the paranormal rather than focusing on the actual ghostbusting, these ghostbusters seem to want more fame and fortune than the safety of the citizens. In the final moments of the film the ghosts all looked very generic and uninspiring, all of the ghosts took on a blue hue of color and the only other ghosts that I noticed that were different were **Slimer** and the winged ghost. Two shades of green and whole lotta blue. The villain in this movie was totally generic and utterly forgettable. I think that the ghosts in the originals were way scarier. The **Marshmallow Man** was definitely one of the best villains.

The good things and the not so good things about this movie, was that a few of the original cast members were in it but they weren't given any important roles at all. **Bill Murray** played a character named _Martin Heiss_ who was given a small role of being a paranormal debunker who was killed off in minutes with barely no screen time at all.The taxi driver who didn’t want to drive Erin was actually the famous _Ray_ ( **Dan Aykroyd** ) in the originals was given an even smaller role with just being seconds in the movie. Same goes for the _Holtzman_ ’s mentor ( **Sigourney Weaver** ), Patty’s uncle ( **Ernie Hudson** ), the desk clerk ( **Annie Pots** ), and others. This was a big insult to the original cast and big disappointment to the fans who were hoping to go back to their childhoods with this movie.

All the other cameos were totally unnecessary and confusing, for example **Ozzy Osborne** at the metal concert, and on that note, let’s talk music. It was okay, for the most part. Definitely nothing close to the original, but not too bad. Although the “metal” music was terrible, I can't understand how **Ozzy Osborne** even wanted to be there. Too much action music, and too much action in general.

They had no time to form an emotional connection or have a quiet moment in any scene from the film and it ultimately proved to be the reason for the characters not developing at all. The characters felt stiff, and the relationships were plain. They were also trying to be funny but it kind of always ended up being too awkward or simply not needed in the movie.

All on all this movie felt like it was aimed for kids and not fans who loved the originals. Portrayed feminism and female power in the worst way possible, didn’t pay tribute worthy enough for the originals to shine again and ultimately destroyed the beginning of female leads in movies.

Although it also paved the way for the actual third installment in the movie series, titled _Ghostbusters: Afterlife,_ which I am sure might save the franchise from this embarrassment, and where my heart might finally find a connection. I hope that this movie doesn’t change your opinion of Ghostbusters, and I hope that Ghostbusters will stay for years in our hearts even when the series finally ends.

Don’t waste your time on this movie and go watch the original Ghostbusters, unless of course you are here for Kevin.

**I Love GB**

Giina Gremory


End file.
